Video: Pakistan’s Zapruder film

posted at 11:05 am on December 29, 2007 by Allahpundit

It’s the same footage Bryan linked yesterday, but the CNN edit didn’t isolate and zoom in on the key detail. You’ll see that here. When they said the gunman was close to the vehicle, they weren’t kidding; hard to believe he missed her entirely at that range.

Per the Times, Bush is considering asking Musharraf to open up the investigation to foreign police, including the FBI. Bad idea — if the feds concur in the official judgment, we’ll be blamed as co-conspirators. Click the image to watch.

Update: The version in the sidebar at Sky News is clearer and has sound. I count four shots fired and then it looks like the bomb goes off immediately afterwards.

Update: Musharraf’s calls the bluff of conspiracy theorists by offering to exhume Bhutto’s body if her party requests it. Meanwhile, most curiously, lead suspect Baitullah Mehsud denies responsibility. Why would a jihadi refuse some jihadi glory gratis? The better to implicate Musharraf, I guess.

Sounded like a first shot, then a pause, then three more shots in rapid succession. Then the blast.

Wonder if the Paki authorities still say she hit her head on a handle inside the car (!) …. or if maybe the 4 shots fired right at her and the massive explosion that followed maybe had something to do with it.

Makes you wonder how Musharraf has managed to avoid getting hit (and I know they’ve tried) over the last seven years when it appeared to be this easy to get her in just a couple of months.

So you have a guy, he knows that he’s about to die, he’s in boisterous crowd, this is the climax of his wretched little life, he’s about to be mobbed by virgins, he’s firing a little snub-noesed pistol, and it’s impossible in the adrenaline fog that he might miss?

I’m not saying it’s so, but from that footage, the idea that she heard a shot, ducked into the car and then the right side of her skull was slammed into something inside the car from the force of the blast is certainly plausible. Not to mention that the x-ray image I saw looked a lot more like a blunt trauma of some sort than a gunshot. And that it was the right side of her skull, away from the gunman and in the direction the blast would have propelled her.

Who and why that doesn’t answer, but it sure does look a lot like the what.

I keep coming back to the thought about how she was handling her security during this time. She was a strong advocate for democracy but she had some shady past dealings. Was she a true hero or was she merely foolishly holding onto a belief that she was Pakistan’s destiny, be it alive or as a martyr?

That was no little snub-nose–9mm or .45 in the Colt semi-auto configuration. He was six feet away. No missing from there. Why the government would say she died from a knock on the noggin is an open question. Seems extraordinarily unlikely. Blast from the Martyr-9000 BoomerBelt was close, though.

I do have to say, though, I’m a little surprised that so many people seem to be surprised or aghast at the idea that a bomb blast might kill someone. It’s not the concussive force of a blast that kills generally, it’s more often than not imapact with other objects. If you assume she was in the car traveling at 200 mph and it came to a sudden stop, it would be impact with something in the car that would be likely to kill her. This is no different.

There’s not any real reason for the government to say what they said; it changes none of the dynamic of what happened. And while I’m not saying it’s so, I am saying it’s not absurd at all to gather as much from that footage.

I have to assume this guy was well trained given the mission. I shoot quite a bit, and I’m not going to miss at the 6 foot range he was working with. He also looks to have had a good sight picture from his hand position. I have to assume he hit.

If not, it is true that the blast could’ve done her in, like a car accident as Typhoon said. I just find gunshots more likely.

I clearly heard four shots–one, then three in rapid succession–followed by the suicide blast perhaps second later.

It was a large-frame semi-auto in the video (a decent still photo here, and is quite probably the same gun as shown recovered by police following the blast. I tweaked it around yesterday in Photoshop trying to get a decent color balance, and never did get quite satisfactory results, but it appears that it could be a Tokarev, or something similar.

It is quite possible to miss at that range, even for trained shooters. Combine the fact that the shooter was being jostled about in a crowd and was under the stress of getting his shots off quickly, and it makes hits even less probable.

Right. Stonings and honor killings don’t count, and apostasy is only a crime under Sharia Law if you’re a man. They only get tough on women when they are raped.

Anyhoo, it’s almost as if Bhutto had a death wish. On the one hand she complained about inadequate security (which is not an illegitimate complaint) but on the other hand she’s standing up and leaving herself completely unprotected.

Why didn’t she complain to our government if she felt unprotected? Why would she send a letter to Wolf Blitzer implicating Musharraf in advance, but not go to Condi Rice with her concerns?

He could have missed at that range. Hundreds of her supporters around him pushing and shoving to get close, moving his feet, tripping, nervous carrying 12 pounds of C4 type material around, there could be a hundred reasons to miss at that range.

At that point, was her vehicle outside the main gate of that park? If so, I can see where people who had not been screened/checked for weapons would be lurking outside the security zone.

I’m going to start a new conspiracy theory that she planned to be shot. I mean, she got out of the car sunroof right for that section of the route- why in the world would she do that? Remember when the Taiwanese president was accused of setting up his own shooting?

Where Mr_C5150? There’s a guy on the back of the vehicle who leans forward almost like he’s aiming (which confused me at first), but I see only guy and account for all shots from him. Unless they have grassy knolls in Rawalpindi….. You see something?

What am I missing here? I’d happily throw my hat in the trash if someone could explain why she was so careless about her own safety, yet so eager to set up Musharraf and blame him and his “minions” for not doing enough to protect her.

Well, I heard four and then what could have been another shot or the explosion. Anyway it looks to me like he could have missed. Looks to me like he wasn’t doing to great at aiming. Mostly just point and shoot kinda thing. As for the shots the first one was probably steady but the others happened fast enough he could have just been squeezing them off with not enough time between to really be re-aiming the gun. Either way she they got the job done and that country is in trouble.

Someone said that the major wound was on the right side of the head, therefore mitigating against a gunshot coming from her left. But a large exit wound on the right would fit perfectly with a shot (and smaller entrance wound) from the left.

I question the timing… before this catastrophe, the run up to the primaries, national security was not on the table. It was a Rovian/McBushHitler fear mongering ploy from the past, very passe for the more sophisticated ’08 voter. I will posit it was Bush & his good ol-boy Musharraf that conspired to kill Bhutto. Bush needs a republican in the WH so that he doesn’t get thrown in prison for war crimes.

This conspiracy theory #100459, will be available at KOS and Rosie’s blog in 1, 2, 3… seconds. :-)

Just like a turkey shoot. All guns, 1 target. They just sat and waited for her to pop her head up.

If she comes out of a cake at Hillarys inaugural, well then ya need a wake up call to get out of the bad dream your having, cause neither are gonna happen in real life. As the world continues on, Hillary’s combination of silence and opportune comment taking are all indicators of what she’s gonna do during any Presidency. You all won’t get a straight answer out of her in any shape or form like you do now. Who’s her running mate gonna be? hmm? and why the file releases not coming out until after the elections? hmmm?
Get with it people. Find another candidate, cause she isn’t it. I don’t even want to think what Billy boy would do in the White House again. What? Serve Micky D’s at her tea parties? Man what a scary pair. I hope everyone has learned a good lesson.

I have to assume this guy was well trained given the mission. I shoot quite a bit, and I’m not going to miss at the 6 foot range he was working with.

HerrMorgenholz on December 29, 2007 at 12:04 PM

But then we’re assuming facts not in evidence.

As someone who also target shoots regularly, I agree that you and I are unlikely to miss at six feet. But you’ve surely seen other shooters who miss at even shorter distances — and they’re not hobbled by a moving target or a bustling crowd.

Unfortunately, this video shows the shooter only; it doesn’t show his target at the moment the shots are fired. Therefore, we don’t know whether the shooter acquired his target.

I don’t think that guy had the angle. In this and other footage I’ve seen, it seemed the bomb went off out of the picture. My bet is that he was the distraction and the bomb was meant to kill her. Bullets can miss and a gunman can be tackled but the bomb kind of gets everything.

HerrMorgenholz: “I have to assume this guy was well trained given the mission.”

I wouldn’t assume that. If you look at suicide bombers in Iraq, for example, they have basically been newbie cannon fodder imported through Syria who were quickly handed off to the folks up front to do their bit for the cause. I’m not sure the pool of potential recruits is really all that big.

In any case, if you look at the SkyNews video in full screen mode, it doesn’t look as though the gun is actually aimed directly at Bhutto. It looks more like the guy is just raising his gun up high enough to shoot over the crowd in her general direction. Aside from the difficulty of shooting one handed while being jostled as well, it’s conceivable that he didn’t have a terribly good line of sight.

When I first saw the video, it thought the shooter was the man on the back of the car, but in full screen mode, it seems clear that he’s on the ground in the crowd (between the camera and the vehicle). You can see the end of his arm (with a little cuff showing) holding the gun and what may, or may not, be the back of his head. I’ve certainly got no forensic credentials, but it looks to me like the shots could easily have gone across the car between Bhutto and the ostensible bodyguard riding the fender.

Armchair quarterbacks, the lot of you. She was killed by two shots, one to the head and one to the torso.

How can I say this with such conviction you might ask? Because there were two people in the Limo, and each one says that she dropped through the roof opening an instant BEFORE the blast, and that she was bleeding profusely.

It serves no purpose to wank about: site pictures, number of shots, did he, or didn’t he miss…etc. etc. The facts speak for themselves. She is dead, and the PakiWaki’s are muddying the water after the fact.

No, I don’t see it that way. If they pulled on her, it would have been in response to the blast…and it would not have been necessary to pull her as the concussive forces would have done the job.

I don’t feel the need to go traipsing off in the weeds scrutinizing every single detail. I’ve looked at the available (to the public) evidence, weighed her companions statements, noted the spin(s) coming from the authorities and drawn my conclusions as to what was the most probable series of events.

The fact is, she’s dead and things will most likely get worse, before they get better. Relatively speaking of course because PakiWakiLand is a seriously messed up place.